


Undressed for Success

by Beltenebra



Category: Arashi (Band), Johnny's Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Casual Friday, Gen, Humor, abuse of corporate procedures and men's fashion, pranks and hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:52:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beltenebra/pseuds/Beltenebra
Summary: Jun attempts to enforce some fashion sense on his co-workers through the mechanism of Casual Friday. Hijinks ensue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for JE Just Friends 2010.

Matusmoto Jun leaned back in his ergonomic black leather chair and surveyed his desk with a satisfied sigh. He loved the feeling of having completed another successful project. This one had been a particular coup; he had landed Kitagawa Pharmaceuticals a coveted lead sponsor slot for the Japanese World Cup team. Their logo would be plastered on just about every piece of merchandise he could conceive. He was pretty sure this would get him the bump up to VP of Corporate Communications he had been angling for.

It was rare for him to have a completely clean slate at work. He didn’t do well with down-time. Clearly it was time for a new project. He was just about to venture out in search of fresh coffee when his eyes fell on the current issue of _Men’s Non-No_ peaking out of the top of his sleek leather attache. The latest Spring fashions were hitting the stores and he was pleased to see the riot of colors hit the streets of Tokyo.

Suddenly he knew exactly what he should turn his attention to next. It would be good for employee morale _and_ give him a chance to break in his new Top-Siders. He would bring casual Friday to Kitagawa Pharmaceuticals! He would probably have to clear it with Koyama down in HR but he doubted he would encounter any problems there; the kid was a pushover.

Morning made brighter by the prospect of a new project, he strolled out of his office humming jauntily, not noticing the way junior staffers scattered in his wake. He was too occupied composing the perfect company-wide memo in his head.

A few Fridays later, Jun strolled into work with a smile on his face and _nearly_ comfortable loafers on his feet. He had chosen the perfect outfit: crisply tailored linen slacks in creamy beige and one of the season’s newest offerings, a lavender and cream pin-striped button down. He had slung his favorite dove grey sweater around his shoulders. He was the perfect picture of casual men’s fashion.

He usually got to the office early. He liked to enjoy his first cup of coffee while the building was still peaceful and undisturbed by meddlesome co-workers.

This morning he only got to enjoy ten minutes of quiet satisfaction since his first interruption came in the form of Aiba Masaki. Aiba headed up one of the company’s handful of Tokyo-based R&D sections. He was loud and boisterous and more often than not Jun was confused about how they had come to be friends but he couldn’t deny that they were, though Jun tried to avoid him until after lunch. Early morning contact with Aiba tended to give Jun a headache.

“Good morning, Jun-kun!” Aiba’s slightly scratchy voice shattered the calm.

Jun didn’t bother to look up from his perusal of the morning paper. “How many times have I told you that when we’re at work you should call me Matsumoto-san?”

“I’ve lost count. You’d think that you would stop wasting your time, considering the data indicates that no correlation between the number of times you make the request and the the likely effectiveness of the request on my behavior exists”, the taller man replied cheerfully.

Jun sighed, “And yet...” Then he made the mistake of looking up to address Aiba properly. The scientist was dressed in what had to be the loudest Hawaiian shirt ever to exist. It was the kind of thing tacky tourist wear dreamed of growing up to become. It was neon pink and a shade of green Jun was sure never existed in the natural world, splashed liberally with parrots and pineapples. Aiba had chosen to pair this with bright geometrically-patterned orange and blue board shorts which would have been fine if worn alone. And if they weren’t hundreds of miles from the nearest beach. Aiba’s habitual lab-coat was thrown on over the whole ensemble. Jun resisted the urge to squint.

He suppressed a groan. He ought to have known better than to expect that Aiba would stick with the guidelines laid out in the memo. Aiba only occasionally registered what was going on in the world outside of his lab and only elected to participate in said world about half of the time. He tried to avoid looking at his friend head-on and kept his tone even, “Aiba, you can’t be in here right now. You’re clashing with my everything.”

Aiba’s giggle bubbled up, high and breathy. “Fine, fine, Jun-kun. I’ll see you later!” he caroled before heading off into the depths of the building, flip-flops echoing in the tiled corridor.

He needed more coffee. He headed over to the nearest kitchenette and a fresh pot, his initial good mood slightly dimmed. Maybe the caffeine would help. Just as he was passing the elevators, one set of doors whooshed open and disgorged his nemesis: Ninomiya, from accounting. People may have accused him of being melodramatic, but he and Nino got along approximately as well as wet cats in a sack.

Jun traced it all the way back to his very first day at the company when he has been just another naive kid, fresh out of business school. Since then Nino had made it his personal mission to mess with Jun at every possible opportunity.

_“What is this appointment in my schedule for Thursday? It looks like a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t make a doctor’s appointment. I’m in perfect health.”_

_Nino smiled guilelessly, which meant absolutely no good. “I made it for you. It’s just a little out-patient procedure; you won’t miss more than a few hours of work, I promise.”_

_Jun glared and resisted the temptation to stamp his foot in frustration, “But what is it_ for _?!”_

_“Oh, it’s a stickectomy.”_

_“A what?!”_

_Nino responded in slow even tones, like he was talking to a child, “A stick-ectomy. A medical suffix, means ‘to remove’. You know, to try to get rid of that giant tree branch you have lodged in your ass?”_

_Jun bit down on a shriek of outrage utterly failing to notice that Aiba had paused in the doorway behind him to watch the exchange. Aiba looked at Nino over the oblivious Jun’s shoulder with wide, gleeful eyes and started pantomiming stabbity-stab motions with a ballpoint pen._

_“Goddamnit, Niniomiya! This calendar is for important appointments. You know, actual work?” Jun’s fury sliced through the air. “Something you may not be personally acquainted with but I thought you would at least have a passing notion that it is something _some_ of us have to do occasionally.”_

_The accountant was completely unfazed. “Actual work, huh? So I should assume that your Friday morning appointment to get your eyebrows waxed is strictly for business purposes?”_

_At that point, Jun stomped back to his desk, realizing that nothing productive could come of continuing the argument. He set to rifling through one of his desk drawers and pulled out a packet of blank supplemental calendar pages. Pleased with his forethought, those supplementary pages were a completely justified purchase, he snapped out the ruined page and slid in a new one._

_“You know, I don’t have an endless supply of these things. I only have three duplicate pages for each day so I would thank you to keep your pranks away from my schedule.”_

_He was able to keep his tone relatively even until Aiba put his two cents in chuckling loudly and miming kowtowing, “The schedule is sacred! All hail the appointment book!”_

_Jun snapped, “Nobody asked you, Aiba!”_

_“Nobody ever does, but they totally should,” the other man replied earnestly. “I have opinions; I have just as many opinions as you!”_

_Nino shook his head sagely. “Nobody has as many opinions as MatsuJun.”_

_“I’m full of opinions! Oh, and meat!” He grinned at Jun and Nino’s identical quizzical expressions. “Leader and I had yakiniku for lunch.”_

_The accountant perked up, “Oh yeah? Where did you go?”_

_Aiba’s answer was interrupted by Jun’s fist coming down hard on his desk. “Must you have this conversation in_ my _office?!”_

_Nino snickered and Aiba pulled him out of the room just in time to avoid the paperweight aimed at his head._

Jun would never admit it, but sometimes, every once in a while, he actually enjoyed trading insults with Nino. And they usually called a truce over beers after office hours. But mostly he found him incredibly irritating.

This morning looked to be no exception to that. The accountant stumbled out of the elevator, still more than half asleep, which was pretty standard for him. Not standard was the ratty, hole-ridden flannel shirt, cut-off shorts that looked they may have been a pair of fairly nice khakis in a past life, and faded red high-top sneakers that seemed to be staying together through the power of sheer optimism. The whole outfit was topped with a trucker hat emblazoned with the statement: Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. 

He was frozen stock-still for a moment, staring open-mouthed. Nino finally woke up enough to register him standing there and tipped his chin up, “Hey, MatsuJun.” Jun blinked. Nino noticed him staring at the hat and smiled sleepily, “Sometimes the beer guzzler. It really depends on the establishment.”

Jun was a little too overwhelmed to even sound very angry. “You look like a hobo.”

“But comfortable,” Nino yawned. “Besides which, aren’t hobos casual by default?”

He shuffled off towards accounting before Jun could work up to a really good rant.

He had another forty-five minutes or so of productive work fueled by two cups of black coffee. He made a note to himself to shop for an espresso machine when he had some free time, it would be more efficient.

It sounded like the rest of the office was starting to come to life. Jun could hear the bustle of people in the corridors outside and as excited as he had been yesterday to witness the fruits of his labor, after the morning he had had so far he wasn’t so sure venturing outside of his office was a good idea. But he wasn’t hiding, not exactly. He was buckling down and getting work done. Right. If there was one thing working in PR was good for it was developing the ability to put a positive spin on things.

He had just recaptured his good mood when his office door was flung open to reveal a breathless, panicked Sakurai Sho. Sho was a business analyst who had started at the company around the same time as Jun. He was incredibly intelligent and well-read and incredibly prone to totally random bouts of utter failure when it came to human interaction. Which, in Sho, he found inexplicably charming. He was also an incredibly easy mark for pranking. Jun remembered turning the corner to get to the coffee maker and running smack into Nino and Aiba who were loitering just outside of the kitchenette surreptitiously watching Sho sip his coffee, fresh from the pot.

_Nino turned and motioned to Jun to keep quiet while Aiba muttered under his breath, “We have secretly replaced Sakurai’s regular coffee with a blend of 65% coffee and 35% high-quality top soil. Let’s see if he notices.”_

_They watched Sho take a swig, stop and look up thoughtfully._

_Nino grinned and asked cheerfully, “Hey, Sho... how’s the coffee today?”_

_The analyst raised his eyebrows and smiled, “It’s funny you should ask because it’s actually particularly good today!”_

_Aiba giggled madly as Nino and Jun exchanged looks of trepidation and Nino murmured, “I’m not sure if Aiba is kidding or not but I think it wouldn’t hurt to put in a requisition for better coffee either way.”_

As far as they knew, Sho had never even suspected.

The older man darted through the door and slammed it behind him, panting like he had sprinted all the way from his office. His hair was damp and he was dressed in nice, pressed khakis and a rosy, salmon-colored Lacoste polo shirt, Jun recognized the tiny alligator logo... right above one of the neat holes cut out of the shirt to reveal Sho’s nipples.

Jun’s brain took a second to catch up with what he was seeing but when it did it went straight into overdrive. His eyes widened with shock and his voice was high and alarmed, “Too casual, too casual!” He clapped a hand over his eyes and willed this to be a strange hallucination brought on by caffeine overdose. Sho was still there a few seconds later, blushing bright red, hands firmly clapped over his exposed skin. “Sakurai! What the _hell_ is wrong with you?!”

Sho’s normally deep voice was high and squeaky, spiked with panic, “I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear!”

“How do you accidentally cut holes in you shirt?”

That got him a scowl. “It wasn’t me. I went down to the gym like I do every Friday morning and left my clothes hanging up in my office. I came back and put them on and I noticed this,” he gestured down at the mutilated shirt. “And there was a post-it stuck to it that read ‘Not casual enough’. And my gym shirt is _really_ sweaty and gross and I don’t know what to do. Help!”

Jun tried to sniff unobtrusively, grateful that Sho hadn’t decided to go with the gym shirt. His headache came screaming back with a vengeance. He took several deep breaths and gingerly rubbed his temples. “Don’t worry. It’s ok, I can fix this.”

The older man gave him a look of awed disbelief. “You have pink duct tape?”

It took him a moment to realize that Sho wasn’t kidding. He sighed gustily, “No. I have a _shirt_.” He pulled out the emergency shirt he kept in his closet, a pale blue button-down, perfectly serviceable, and handed it over to the analyst who smiled gratefully.

Sho handed over the note and of course it was Nino’s handwriting, who _else_ would it have been? “You realize he’s doing this just to ruin my life,” Jun informed Sho matter-of-factly just as a knock sounded at the door. “That will be some other clothing related disaster, just wait.”

Ohno Satoshi opened the door and smiled brightly at them both, “Good morning.” Ohno was a bit of a mystery in the company. He was one of Jun’s seniors, a few management levels up in the corporate structure. He had a VP in his title but if you asked any five people ‘VP of what?’ you’d get five different answers.

Jun distinctly remembered asking someone once what Ohno-san _did_ all day. The other person had shrugged and said ‘Near as I can tell, fishes from a stocked kiddie pool he keeps in his office. And pals around with Ninomiya from accounting.’ That’s how Jun had first met him; Ohno had joined Nino one evening for a post-work drink and was introduced to Jun and Aiba, and later, Sho. He had taken quite a shine to Jun, something about finding him really entertaining, so he would stop at Jun’s office frequently and be distracting.

All of Ohno’s torso appeared to be covered, albeit in a pajama top, complete with matching bottoms and fuzzy slippers. Fuzzy _bunny_ slippers, his mind registered distantly. Before Jun could regulate his brain to mouth filter he snapped, “Did Ninomiya do this to you?”

Ohno just blinked quizzically. Then looked down at the pajamas. Then back up at Jun and Sho. Then he smiled sheepishly. “Oh... no. See, I forgot to tell my Mom about casual day and by the time I remembered I saw that she had already hung out my suit but it was late and she was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her up so I just wore these. They’re casual, right, Jun-kun? At least the guidelines of the memo seemed to say so...” he trailed off, peering a piece of paper.

Now, Jun was very fond of Ohno. And Ohno was also senior management. Pretty much all he could do was reply faintly, “I see. I’m sure that’s fine, Ohno-san. If you don’t mind, might I look at that memo for a moment?”

The VP nodded and held it out with a smile.

It looked like his memo. It had his name and e-mail address at the top, it had the correct subject line and opening address about the benefits of casual dress in the office on an occasional basis, it had his electronic signature. But everything else in between was pure evil.

The carefully worded and compiled guidelines for appropriate casual dress that Jun had spent so much time working on had been replaced with a set rules that one might _very politely_ refer to as ‘relaxed’.

He could feel his eyes widen as he read down the list. “Pajamas are ok, sweatpants are valid, footwear should be as old as possible, shirts with inappropriate slogans are encouraged - the sexual harassment policy will be waived for the duration of casual day... casual dress is ultimately defined as any attire that is not a business suit. Valid alternatives include snow suits, bathing suits, scuba suits, birthday suits (the officials guidelines for “decency” require one to cover ones testicles)....” His voice trailed off in horror. “But... by that definition, women would be considered decent even if they weren’t wearing anything at all.”

“Damn straight!” Nino’s voice rang out triumphantly.

Jun looked up to see Nino leaning against the door frame and smirking. His vision went red, he balled up the memo and lunged. His fingertips just brushed the shorter man’s collar before he ducked back behind Ohno. Jun’s fingers scrabbled at empty air and he realized that Sho was holding him back, arms firm around his midriff.

“Don’t worry, Jun-kun,” Aiba murmured soothingly from the hallway. “From what I’ve seen so far, there’s only a minuscule chance with an error margin of two percent on either side that anyone came to work naked today.”

Ohno smiled and patted Jun’s head like a puppy. He sighed and sagged in Sho’s hold, the fight gone out of him all of a sudden. He glared at Nino again, but this time it lacked heat. “So... you hacked my e-mail account?”

“I most certainly did! Because I am not only fantastic with numbers involving money but am also a computer _genius_. And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for- hey! Wait a second... I _did_ get away with it. As is evidenced by the fact that I’m telling you about it _right now_.”

And at that point he couldn’t help it, the whole situation was too ridiculous. Thoughts of the entire building coming in to work dressed in ratty gym clothes and offensive shirts and lingerie and god knows what else got to him and he doubled over, wracked with more-than-slightly-hysterical laughter.

The others joined in, presumably glad they wouldn’t have to put him on homicide watch. They all ended up spending the rest of Casual Friday camped out in Jun’s office, bull-shitting. At one point Ohno left without saying a word and returned with sandwiches and margaritas. Jun figured the day wasn’t a total loss.

At some point, Aiba’s story was interrupted by a polite knock on the door. Sho called out, his voice tequila-exuberant, “Come on in!”

Koyama poked his head around the door-frame timidly, “Um, Matsumoto-san? I think maybe there was a bit of a mix-up about Casual Day?”

His question was met with peals of laughter. Jun saw that he was wearing a perfectly acceptable plain polo shirt and jeans and appeared to be very confused to see the head of R&D, an analyst, the terror of accounting, and a VP of something-or-other apparently well on their way to drunk in Jun’s office.

Jun sat up from where he was slumped over in his armchair and smoothed his face into a ‘serious business’ expression. “Yes, I saw that. You know, Koyama-kun? I think someone ought to draft a memo.”

The rest of the room roared with laughter and Koyama tittered nervously, missing the joke. He bowed and excused himself, clearly wanting to be away from the madhouse as quickly as possible.

Jun figured that it was ok if this was the first and last Casual Friday. Given his co-workers, he didn’t think the office could survive being casual on a weekly basis. Maybe instead he should suggest Margarita Mondays. He mentioned this proposal aloud; the rest of the group whole-heartedly approved.


End file.
